Dead or Alive: Beneath Silent Stars
by Spiritblade
Summary: ONE SHOT Inspired by Wingless Angel's 'Forbidden Fruit', a story of the KasumiHayate pairing. Idea also inspired by Tsukihime anime as well as some original ideas. Version 2 of story posted
1. Chapter 1 Version 1

_**A Dead or Alive Fanfic**_

_**Beneath Silent stars**_

_**Written by Spiritblade**_

**_Disclaimer: _**I don't own the game, nor do I know the time-line, and as such, will be grateful for any reviewer to enlighten me. I only ask tolerance with what I'm doing - mistakes or otherwise. This story is a Hayate-Kasumi pairing - and you know what it implies. I am also aware of their relationship, but I had a use for it, and so, this story was born. This story was inspired by Forbidden Fruit, written by Wingless Angel. This story is from Kasumi's POV.

This is a re-post. I hope this is better than the first and second drafts. The one reason why I'm rewriting this again and again is because I wanted this story to flow smoothly.

**_Important Note to reader: _**There are two versions of this story. Chapter 1 is one version, and chapter 2, another. They are essentially the same story, albeit the second chapter is longer and has more...intimate scenes. Trying to get that right. No writer should be without some experience in every arena, less he or she fall short - and not from lack of trying. As to which version of this story you choose to read or is the better one, I leave it to you.

_**Some terms used in this story:**_

Kagerou-Shiki : - Shadow Fangs (transl. from Japanese)

Ctarl-Ctarl : - alien race from the anime 'Outlaw Star', were-beasts.

**X X X X X X**

The chase is over, and I have lost. I know what is about to happen, but I don't care. I'm no longer afraid. I know that trapped beneath him like this, my body wracked with exhaustion from the long pursuit and battle with the Kagerou-Shikiis the culmination of my years of exile. In the long, lonely nights as I fled the vengeance of my Clan, I have beheld an ending such as this. My final breath shall be drawn not by the hands of my Clan's faceless assassins, nor by those who seek to usurp and take my family's power for themselves, but by the hand of the one I love above all others.

The cold, sharp steel of his wakizashi pressed a hair's breath from my throat is at odds with the warmth and tenderness of his breath upon my skin. His firm grip that pinned me down was the same grip that had held me during cold winter nights and drove my fears away. It is for this that my beautiful half-sister, Ayane, has longed for. Born of rape, she had ever been octracised in our village and Clan, and only my brother and I had ever accepted her as family. But, behind it all, we loved our brother (or half-brother, in Ayane's case) in a way that is considered taboo by all of society. I know about the tragedy and heartbreak that such relationships bring, but my family - the Nanaya Clan - had done so for many generations for the sole purpose of consolidating the power that had always been our birthright.

What flows in the veins of the Nanaya family is power beyond the reach of any mortal, and it is one that had a shadowy organisation attempt to claim it by cloning me. They succeeded - but in the same breath, their actions brought about their destruction. My clones not only refused their perverse affections, but in their escape to search for my brother in their shared hopes to be made whole, made complete, they destroyed the labs that they were in. Ayane and the Kagerou-Shiki hunted each and every one of them down before any one of them could have their answer.

And now, like them, I have nowhere else to run to.

I smile sadly. I don't want to run. I've had enough of running. For three years ever since I left the Clan village to carry out a mission to end the life of the bastard who raped my mother, I've been pursued not only by the ninjas of my Clan, but by mercenaries as well as the agents of the Solar Empire. No. No more. I will not run anymore. I'm so tired...so very tired. I know the price of my loving you. I'm now nothing more than a homeless exile, hunted and hated no matter how far and how long I run.

Is this your answer, onii-chan? Is this all that is left?

Is this how our story ends? You never told me the ending of the story of what happened to the survivors of the Legion of the Fiery Sword. Did they meet their ends in the same way I am about to meet mine?

"Onii-chan..." I whisper brokenly, gazing into his light brown eyes, blazing with a predator's hunger. Yes...how like a wolf he was in body and soul. Strong and poweful, the hunger in those amber depths was not one tha could be denied. I have tried to fight it down with all my strength, but I know that, now, like this, to hold it back was akin to trying to stop a tsunami. Ryu Hayabusa, my brother's best friend, had once asked what I felt for my brother. He had been drunk then, having returned from a particularly difficult mission. I gave him an answer that most girls would give when asked what they felt about their older, male siblings. Ryu had laughed and told me that I lied badly.

"You love him, don't you, Ka-chan? You love him - not as a sister - but as a woman. Now, don't look so shocked, little fox. I've known you, Ayane and that baka ever since we were children. I may be young, but I was neither blind nor stupid. I saw the way you and Ayane looked at that baka, and I knew that for any other man to enter your lives would be impossible. But...Ka-chan...this is a love that will bring pain. But...what is love if not pain borne for those you cherish?

"Once upon a time, such forbidden love would not have been so despised as it is now...it was a safeguard, you see, to prevent the children of the family from 'Reversing'. To weaken the power within ensured that it would not possess its host. That was the reason why the Clan Heads forbade the birth of children arising from the union between brother and sister. They're afraid that you will not be able to control your power. Do you remember the story your brother told you about the Chaplain-General Shateiel of the Fiery Sword? One of your ancestors served under him...and she Reversed. It took the Chaplain-General, his Royal Guard, and two entire Kagerou-Shiki Kill-teams to take her down. Yes...she was that powerful."

Another face appeared in my mind, this one with dark hair and amber eyes, clad in the robes of the Holy Order, the Templar arm of the Solar Empire's army. His voice echoed in my mind:

"The eternity you wish for, Kasumi-san, is something that only you can make real. If it is what you want, then seize it with both hands and never let go. This goes double when it comes to matters of the heart. Chiharu and her sister will strangle me if they hear what I'm about to tell you, so I'll be quick. Women have a right to be selfish when it comes to the people they love."

But, is it already too late to stake my claim to that eternity I have spent so long chasing? Is it? I open my eyes once more and met my brother's tormented gaze once more.

"I've lost, haven't I?" I asked, "The games we used to play when we were children, I mean. You always managed to find me whenever we played Hide and Seek. No matter where I hid, you would always find me. And now, I know why. Blood always calls to blood. I will not run, onii-chan...I'm so very tired of running. If you want to kill me, then please make it painless..."

My brother was silent for a long time, before he finally spoke, "How did it come to this?"

"Fate is a cruel thing, onii-chan. It has been cruel to you, me and Ayane. It has been cruel to our entire family. It has been cruel to everyone we've ever known and loved," and I sigh deeply, "I want to say this much before you kill me, Hayate onii-chan. I love you. I always have ever since I was a little girl. I love you as a woman, not as your sister. Ayane loves you in the same way as well, but she is too scared to say it, as she is frightened to death at the thought of losing you, the only person who ever treated her as family."

"Kasumi..."

"Blood calls to blood, onii-chan, as mine has called out to yours. Mother was ever so fond of saying those words. I ever wondered what she meant when she said that, and now I know. She knew that this would happen, no matter how hard our family and our Clan tried to prevent it. I am in your blood, onii-chan, more than any other woman, save perhaps Ayane." 'As you are in ours' "And now, onii-chan, do what you must. My confessional," and I smile sadly, "is over."

I put my hand onto his, pulling the wakizashi down closer to my neck. One stroke and it will all be over. I close my eyes, awaiting for that single motion that would end my dreams in white-hot agony, warm blood and tears that threatened to spill.

It never came. My brother ripped his hand out of mine and cast aside the wakizashi. My eyes opened at the same time as his body crashed atop mine, the weariness in them one that left scars in his soul. My arms wrapped around my brother's powerful frame, and I ran my hand through his light-brown hair. When he finally raised himself minutes later to speak the words I had ever longed to hear, I silenced him by pulling him into a kiss, and I felt something deep inside me erupt. The way my brother's body tensed told me that he was fully aware of the woman I had become. My body was one that would have made models - even those among the Ctarl-Ctarl - envious, and possessed a strength that was primal in its every movement, honed and made lithe by a lifetime of hard training and survival.

I had expected my brother to break the kiss, bringing an end to my foolish dream. Never would I have imagined in a thousand years that he would return it. I felt the desire in its reciprocation and the unspoken words in it. When he released me, I saw the love and the lust in his eyes. He was fighting hard, trying to bring the Beast in his soul under control. It was useless. This was the Blood Curse of the Nanaya family made manifest. In those eyes I have known and loved all my life, I saw a wordless oath spoken: You, my love, and no other. Hayate kissed me again, this time deeper, and I felt his hands reach under my clothes which revealed the glory of a young woman in the full bloom of life. It didn't take him long to strip me naked, revealing my body to the cold wind and the soft moonlight. I raised my arms over my heard, allowing my brother an unhindered view of the woman I have become. He stared at me in awe, and his voice was a hoarse whisper, "You're beautiful, Kasumi-chan..."

I blushed, before telling him that it was his turn. As he stripped himself of his clothes and weapons, allowing the moonlight to grace his naked form, I found myself, for that moment, unable to breathe. How long has he desired me? If the size of his erection was any proof, then I must have haunted his dreams for years, just as he had haunted mine (and no doubt, Ayane's as well). The sound of the waterfall nearby, and the sakura petals that floated above us, illuminated by the light of the moon and the stars, has set a stage for something that is forbidden, yet magical and sacred. Hayate swept me into his arms, kissing me, touching me in ways I could only imagine, and any thought of ending this before it went any farther was swept away in a hurricane of desire. As my brother laid me down gently upon the flat rock where he had pinned me only minutes before, he kissed me gently before spreading my legs to reveal a pathway that led to a sacred crucible, now drenched and awaiting fulfillment.

I smiled at him, and nodded. As he sank into me, I could not help but give vent to a strangled cry, one filled with pain, joy and ecstasy as I sheathed him completely. I felt tears spill from my eyes, and the sensation of my brother kissing them away told me that my dream was already a reality. This was the eternity I wished for. Hayate kissed me, before he started thrusting into me. My internal muscles gripped him tightly, resisting as he thrust forward, and gripping as he withdrew. Each stroke, hard and strong, caressing my womb, bespoke of a hunger that would last long after this coupling was done, and would whisper softly and sweetly as a hymn sung in my mind.

As that moment came closer, as those thrusts grew harder and stronger, penetrating deeper, I felt my heart beat faster, and my breathing faster than when I was eluding the Kagerou-Shiki. And when it finally did, the sensation of it was exquisite beyond words. I threw my head back and wailed, as I felt something warm and sensuous spill into my womb, spreading tendrils throughout my body, its soft, tender heat stealing my breath away. The sensation was indescribable. I felt as if I was enveloped in ice and fire, to feel the heat of the sun even as the coldest winds envelope you, to feel your heart race and your lungs collapse, to die a thousand times and be reborn.

My brother trembled, his grip crushing me to him, as he spilled more of his seed into me, and I moaned softly. He stared at me, dazed and in awe, before running his hand through my long, golden-brown hair, my face, over my full breasts, to my belly, and finally lower, to where a sacred place was. I caught his hand, and kept them there. He knew what that gesture meant. He smiled, and nodded acceptance. It was a smile that I had longed to see. It was the smile of my loving, older brother who had been many things to me. And tonight, beneath the silent stars, I have become more than all that. He kissed my eyes, then. There would be many, many, many nights like this, I knew. Nights in which Ayane and I would share a bed with our brother, bringing his children into the world.

I cannot ask for more, and I doubt that I ever will.

_**- Fin.**_

**_Author's Note: _**Oh, by the God-Emperor, writing this story is so going to get me burned at the stake. This story is, in some fashion, linked to the Tsukihime anime (i.e. : the Nanaya Clan name; the main character of Tsukihime, Shiki, is related to this clan and their methods of passing on their killing Disciplines were incestuous). I decided to take advantage of that fact, play God, and used it to craft this story. I also crafted the story in a fashion and time-line that will allow me, in the near future, to use as I please - albeit with some alterations.

One last thing, did I set the temperature of the story right?


	2. Version 2

_**A Dead or Alive Fanfic**_

_**Beneath Silent stars**_

_**Written by Spiritblade**_

_**Disclaimer: **_I don't own the game, nor do I know the time-line, and as such, will be grateful for any reviewer to enlighten me. I only ask tolerance with what I'm doing - mistakes or otherwise. This story is a Hayate-Kasumi pairing - and you know what it implies. I am also aware of their relationship, but I had a use for it, and so, this story was born. This story was inspired by Forbidden Fruit, written by Wingless Angel. This story is from Kasumi's POV.

This is a re-post. I hope this is better than the first and second drafts. The one reason why I'm rewriting this again and again is because I wanted this story to flow smoothly. As there're _**too few **_good stories on this pairing, I wanted to make sure this one stands out as one of the good ones.

_**Important Note to reader: **_There are two versions of this story. Chapter 1 is one version, and chapter 2, another. They are essentially the same story, albeit the second chapter is longer and has more...intimate scenes. Trying to get that right. No writer should be without some experience in every arena, less he or she fall short - and not from lack of trying. As to which version of this story you choose to read or is the better one, I leave it to you.

_**Some terms used in this story:**_

Kagerou-Shiki : - Shadow Fangs (transl. from Japanese)

Ctarl-Ctarl : - alien race from the anime 'Outlaw Star', were-beasts.

**X X X X X X**

The chase is over, and I have lost. I know what is about to happen, but I don't care. I'm no longer afraid. I know that trapped beneath him like this, my body wracked with exhaustion from the long pursuit and battle with the Kagerou-Shikiis the culmination of my years of exile. In the long, lonely nights as I fled the vengeance of my Clan, I have beheld an ending such as this. My final breath shall be drawn not by the hands of my Clan's faceless assassins, nor by those who seek to usurp and take my family's power for themselves, but by the hand of the one I love above all others.

The cold, sharp steel of his wakizashi pressed a hair's breath from my throat is at odds with the warmth and tenderness of his breath upon my skin. His firm grip that pinned me down was the same grip that had held me during cold winter nights and drove my fears away. It is for this that my beautiful half-sister, Ayane, has longed for. Born of rape, she had ever been octracised in our village and Clan, and only my brother and I had ever accepted her as family. But, behind it all, we loved our brother (or half-brother, in Ayane's case) in a way that is considered taboo by all of society. I know about the tragedy and heartbreak that such relationships bring, but my family - the Nanaya Clan - had done so for many generations for the sole purpose of consolidating the power that had always been our birthright.

What flows in the veins of the Nanaya family is power beyond the reach of any mortal, and it is one that had a shadowy organisation attempt to claim it by cloning me. They succeeded - but in the same breath, their actions brought about their destruction. My clones not only refused their perverse affections, but in their escape to search for my brother in their shared hopes to be made whole, made complete, they destroyed the labs that they were in. Ayane and the Kagerou-Shiki hunted each and every one of them down before any one of them could have their answer.

And now, like them, I have nowhere else to run to.

I smile sadly. I don't want to run. I've had enough of running. For three years ever since I left the Clan village to carry out a mission to end the life of the bastard who raped my mother, I've been pursued not only by the ninjas of my Clan, but by mercenaries as well as the agents of the Solar Empire. No. No more. I will not run anymore. I'm so tired...so very tired. I know the price of my loving you. I'm now nothing more than a homeless exile, hunted and hated no matter how far and how long I run.

Is this your answer, onii-chan? Is this all that is left?

Is this how our story ends? You never told me the ending of the story of what happened to the survivors of the Legion of the Fiery Sword. Did they meet their ends in the same way I am about to meet mine?

"Onii-chan..." I whisper brokenly, gazing into his light brown eyes, blazing with a predator's hunger. Yes...how like a wolf he was in body and soul. Strong and poweful, the hunger in those amber depths was not one tha could be denied. I have tried to fight it down with all my strength, but I know that, now, like this, to hold it back was akin to trying to stop a tsunami. Ryu Hayabusa, my brother's best friend, had once asked what I felt for my brother. He had been drunk then, having returned from a particularly difficult mission. I gave him an answer that most girls would give when asked what they felt about their older, male siblings. Ryu had laughed and told me that I lied badly.

"You love him, don't you, Ka-chan? You love him - not as a sister - but as a woman. Now, don't look so shocked, little fox. I've known you, Ayane and that baka ever since we were children. I may be young, but I was neither blind nor stupid. I saw the way you and Ayane looked at that baka, and I knew that for any other man to enter your lives would be impossible. But...Ka-chan...this is a love that will bring pain. But...what is love if not pain borne for those you cherish?

"Once upon a time, such forbidden love would not have been so despised as it is now...it was a safeguard, you see, to prevent the children of the family from 'Reversing'. To weaken the power within ensured that it would not possess its host. That was the reason why the Clan Heads forbade the birth of children arising from the union between brother and sister. They're afraid that you will not be able to control your power. Do you remember the story your brother told you about the Chaplain-General Shateiel of the Fiery Sword? One of your ancestors served under him...and she Reversed. It took the Chaplain-General, his Royal Guard, and two entire Kagerou-Shiki Kill-teams to take her down. Yes...she was that powerful."

Another face appeared in my mind, this one with dark hair and amber eyes, clad in the robes of the Holy Order, the Templar arm of the Solar Empire's army. His voice echoed in my mind:

"The eternity you wish for, Kasumi-san, is something that only you can make real. If it is what you want, then seize it with both hands and never let go. This goes double when it comes to matters of the heart. Chiharu and her sister will strangle me if they hear what I'm about to tell you, so I'll be quick. Women have a right to be selfish when it comes to the people they love."

But, is it already too late to stake my claim to that eternity I have spent so long chasing? Is it? I open my eyes once more and met my brother's tormented gaze once more.

"I've lost, haven't I?" I asked, "The games we used to play when we were children, I mean. You always managed to find me whenever we played Hide and Seek. No matter where I hid, you would always find me. And now, I know why. Blood always calls to blood. I will not run, onii-chan...I'm so very tired of running. If you want to kill me, then please make it painless..."

My brother was silent for a long time, before he finally spoke, "How did it come to this?"

"Fate is a cruel thing, onii-chan. It has been cruel to you, me and Ayane. It has been cruel to our entire family. It has been cruel to everyone we've ever known and loved," and I sigh deeply, "I want to say this much before you kill me, Hayate onii-chan. I love you. I always have ever since I was a little girl. I love you as a woman, not as your sister. Ayane loves you in the same way as well, but she is too scared to say it, as she is frightened to death at the thought of losing you, the only person who ever treated her as family."

"Kasumi..."

"Blood calls to blood, onii-chan, as mine has called out to yours. Mother was ever so fond of saying those words. I ever wondered what she meant when she said that, and now I know. She knew that this would happen, no matter how hard our family and our Clan tried to prevent it. I am in your blood, onii-chan, more than any other woman, save perhaps Ayane." 'As you are in ours' "And now, onii-chan, do what you must. My confessional," and I smile sadly, "is over."

I put my hand onto his, pulling the wakizashi down closer to my neck. One stroke and it will all be over. I close my eyes, waiting for that single motion that would end my dreams in white-hot agony, warm blood and tears.

It never came. My brother ripped his hand out of mine and cast aside the wakizashi. My eyes opened at the same time as his body crashed atop mine, the weariness in them one that left scars in his soul. My arms wrapped around my brother's powerful frame, and I ran my hand through his light-brown hair. When he finally raised himself minutes later to speak the words I had ever longed to hear, I silenced him by pulling him into a kiss, and I felt something hot and fiery deep inside my soul erupt. The way my brother's body tensed told me that he was fully aware of the woman I had become. My body was one that would have made models - even those among the Ctarl-Ctarl - envious, and possessed a strength that was primal in its every movement, honed and made lithe by a lifetime of hard training and survival.

I had expected my brother to break the kiss, bringing an end to my foolish dream. Never would I have imagined in a thousand years that he would return it. I felt the desire in its reciprocation and the unspoken words in it. When he released me, I saw the love and the lust in his eyes. He was fighting hard, trying to bring the Beast in his soul under control, before he committed an irrevocable mistake. It was useless. No amount of inner strength could bring this monster under control. This was the Blood Curse of the Nanaya family made manifest. In those eyes I have known and loved all my life, I saw a wordless oath spoken: You, my love, and no other. Hayate kissed me again, this time deeper, and I felt his hands reach under my clothes which revealed the glory of a young woman in the full bloom of life. It didn't take him long to strip me naked, revealing my body to the cold wind and the soft moonlight. I raised my arms over my head, allowing my brother an unhindered view of the woman I have become. He stared at me in awe, and his voice was a hoarse whisper, "You're beautiful, Kasumi-chan..."

I blushed, before telling him that it was his turn. As he stripped himself of his clothes and weapons, allowing the moonlight to grace his naked form, I found myself, for that moment, unable to breathe. How long has he desired me? If the size of his erection was any proof, then I must have haunted his dreams for years, just as he had haunted mine (and no doubt, Ayane's as well). The sound of the waterfall nearby, and the sakura petals that floated above us, illuminated by the light of the moon and the stars, has set a stage for something that is forbidden, yet magical and sacred. Hayate swept me into his arms, kissing me, touching me in ways I could only imagine, and any thought of ending this before it went any farther was swept away in a hurricane of desire. As my brother laid me down gently upon the flat rock where he had pinned me only minutes before, he kissed me gently before spreading my legs to reveal a drenched opening that led to a sacred crucible within my body.

I smiled at him, and nodded. As he sank into me, I could not help but give vent to a strangled cry, one filled with pain, joy and ecstasy as I sheathed him completely. I felt tears spill from my eyes, and the sensation of my brother kissing them away told me that my dream was already a reality. This was the eternity I wished for. Hayate kissed me, before he started thrusting into me. My internal muscles gripped him tightly, resisting as he thrust forward, and tightening as he withdrew. Cries of ecstasy accompanied each stroke, each hard and strong, caressing my womb, bespoke of a hunger that would endure past this long-awaited moment. My brother kissed my breath away, touching my body the only way a lover could.

As that moment came closer, as those thrusts grew harder and stronger, penetrating deeper, I felt my heart beat faster, and my breathing was more ragged than when I was eluding the Kagerou-Shiki. And when it finally did, the sensation of it was exquisite beyond words. I threw my head back and wailed, as I felt something warm and sensuous spill into my womb, spreading tendrils throughout my body, its soft, tender heat stealing my breath away and crippling even my ability to think clearly. The sensation was indescribable. I felt as if I was enveloped in ice and fire, to feel the heat of the sun even as the coldest winds envelope you, to feel your heart race and your lungs collapse, to die a thousand times and be reborn.

My brother trembled, his grip crushing me to him, as he spilled more of his seed into me, and I moaned softly. He stared at me, dazed and in awe, before running his hand through my long, golden-brown hair, my face, over my full breasts, to my belly, and finally lower to where a sacred place was. I caught his hand, and kept them there. He knew what that gesture meant. He smiled, and nodded acceptance. It was a smile that I had longed to see. It was the smile of my loving, older brother who had been many things to me. And tonight, beneath the silent stars, I have become more than all that. He kissed my eyes, then. There would be many, many, many nights like this, I knew; Nights in which Ayane and I would share a bed with our brother, bringing his children into the world.

I cannot ask for more, and I doubt that I ever will.

_**- Fin.**_

_**Author's Note: **_Oh, by the God-Emperor, writing this story is so going to get me burned at the stake. This story is, in some fashion, linked to the Tsukihime anime (i.e.: the Nanaya Clan name; the main character of Tsukihime, Shiki, is related to this clan and their methods of passing on their killing Disciplines were incestuous). I decided to take advantage of that fact, play God, and used it to craft this story. I also crafted the story in a fashion and time-line that will allow me, in the near future, to use as I please - albeit with some alterations.

One last thing, did I set the temperature of the story right?


End file.
